The Role of Media in the Arab Revolutions: Jordan

Abstract

The media has assumed a central role in shaping public opinion particularly with the rise in protest activity during the recent uprisings in the region. The influx of news caused an information revolution that played an important role in undermining the state monopoly on knowledge and information. During the Arab Spring, the media transformed and worked to disseminate information faster and to a more diverse range of people. Thus, the media has become more involved in the Arab Spring and expanded its role from previous revolutions. The media began a competition between political actors and changed the manner in which these actors responded to political and ideological conflicts. This research is important because it sheds light on how the media influences Jordanians’ views on the Arab Spring. However, this study was limited because it accounted only for the opinions of Jordanians, and hence does not necessarily reflect the opinions of citizens in other Arab nations.
To fully understand the impact of the media on the Arab Spring, we examined the results of a survey done by the Center for Strategic Studies and analyzed them along with other statistics on the rise of social media. Through our analysis, we found that Jordanians believe that the news is biased and has a hidden agenda. This led us to question whether Jordanians were using sources other than traditional media for their information on the protests. From this, we have created the following hypothesis: social media’s role in the Arab Spring as a news agent was largely due to dissatisfaction with the current and conventional news agencies’ manner of reporting.